Still beating on the same drum I see. And? So what?
GAVIN
En Lin Wei wrote:
>
> (continued from previous post)
>
> Pound had been broadcasting fascist propaganda for
> several months when, on December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Then
> he took off
> about two months time to consider whether he would continue broadcasting
> against the U.S.,
> which was now a member of the military alliance dedicated to defeating the
> Tokyo-Berlin-Rome
> Axis. He suspected continued broadcasts might constitute treason. When he
> does continue on
> Jan. 29, 1942, he begins with a reference to the notion of empire.
>
> On Arbour Day, Pearl Arbour Day, at 12 o'clock
> noon, I retired from the capital of the old Roman
> Empire to seek wisdom from the ancients
> (Doob, 23).
>
> His next thought is of China.
>
> I wanted to figure things out. I had a perfectly
> good alibi, if I wanted to play things safe. I was
> and am officially occupied with a new translation
> of the Ta S'eu of Confucius
> (Doob, 23).
>
> This "alibi" was already in print. Time magazine had reported three days
> earlier that Pound had
> "retired to continue his study of Chinese philosophy" (Time, Jan. 26,
> 1942). But his irrepressible
> dedication to fascism and his belief in empire were too strong by now. One
> American journalist
> records,
>
> The day of Pearl Harbor, Pound unexpectedly came
> to our house and told us the war between the United
> States and Italy was inevitable but that he intended
> to stay on. [I] told him that he would be a traitor if he
> did so, and now was the time for him to pipe down about the alleged
> glories of Fascism. "But I believe in Fascism," said Pound, giving the
> Fascist salute, "and I want to defend it . . .
> (Reynolds and Eleanor Packard, Balcony Empire,
> Chatto & Windus, 1943, 179).
>
> Pound also believed in empire and was striving to discover the relevance of
> his Chinese studies
> to the crucial political choice he was making. In Canto 53 he had written
>
> Empire down in the rise of princes
> Tçin drave the Tartar, lands of the emperor idle
> Tcheou tombs fallen in ruin
> from that year was no order
> No man was under another
> 9 Tcheou wd/not stand together
> were not rods in a bundle. . .
> (53/271).
>
> Nolde informs us that this passage summarizes
>
> "the period described by Confucius in the Ch'un
> Ch'iu (The Spring and Autumn Annals), which is traditionally dated 722 - 481
> B.C. . . . The
> reference to 'rods in a bundle' clearly refers to the symbol of Italian
> fascism -- the need to work
> together" (Nolde, 76).
>
> Confucius had thoroughly analyzed the disintegration of the Chou empire; and
> what was needed then, Canto 53 implies, was fascist discipline. In 1942,
> Pound inverts this logic. Now, what is needed, he thinks, is the study of
> Confucius' reflections to prevent a
> breakup of the fascist empire.. In the radio speech of Jan. 29, 1942, he
> says,
>
> I have in Rapallo the text of Confucius, the text
> of the world's finest anthology, namely that which
> Confucius compiled from earlier authors. . .
> I spent a month tryin' to figure things out. . . At any
> rate, I had a month to make up my mind about some
> things. I had Confucius and Mencius, both of whom
> had been up against similar things, Both of whom had
> seen empires fallin' [emphasis added]. Both of whom
> had seen deeper into the causes of human confusion
> than most men ever even think of lookin'
> (Doob, 24).
>
> Later in the same speech, for the sake of Axis solidarity, he goes on to
> defend the Japanese Noh-plays, which had seemed so childish to him a few
> months after translating them.
>
> Anybody who had read the plays entitled Kumasaka
> and Kagekiyo would have AVOIDED the sort of bilge
> printed in Time and the American press, and the
> sort of fetid imbecility I heard a few nights ago
> from the British Broadcasting Corporation
> (Doob, 26).
>
> Pound's rededication to the Axis cause leads him to defend the Japanese,
> whose racial
> characteristics are being maligned by the enemy.
>
> A BBC commentator somewhere about January 8
> was telling his presumably music hall audience
> that the Japs were jackals, and that they had
> just recently, I think he said, within living
> men's lifetimes, emerged from barbarism. . .
> A glance at Japanese sword guards, a glance
> at Jimmy Whistler's remarks about Hokusai, or, as
> I indicated a minute ago, a familiarity with the Awoi
> no Uye, Kumasaka, Nishikigi, or Funa- Benkei. These
> are Japanese classical plays, and would convince
> anyone with more sense than a pea-hen, of the degree
> of Japanese civilization, let alone what they conserved
> when China was, as Fenellosa put it, incapable of
> preserving her own heritage.
> China lettin' Confucius go OUT of the schools
> for example.
>
> Each member of the Axis, it seems, had its assigned task. Japan's was to
> extend the Empire in
> Asia in order to preserve the teachings of Confucius. Italy's was to
> perfect the fascist social
> system and confer the benefits on its colonies in Africa. Germany's role:
> to perfect the "breed" and show how racial purity was important in Empire
> building. Japanese Confucianism, Italian social reform and German eugenics
> were united only by the collective imperial drive.
> Pound began to praise Hitler's writings very openly in 1942. On the radio
> he admits almost
> sheepishly, "I was behindhand in reading Mein Kampf." Then he asks
> scoldingly, "but do you know
> YET what is IN it? Have you a clear idea of the program?"
>
> We have a fairly good idea, don't we?
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
|